Sylha, the start-up launched by a KEDGE Alumnus, which promotes solidarity through spending

Lucas Duchaine has always gotten invested in projects he believes in. When he obtained his high school diploma in Engineering Sciences at age 18 he had already been managing an events association. He then entered a DUT in Physical Measures in Toulouse and had the opportunity to take a gap year and travel to New Zealand in 2010. Once he obtained his degree, he decided to attend KEDGE Business School in Toulon to pursue a degree in Business Engineering. While at KEDGE, he studied for a semester in an American University and created a oenology association called Millési'MED. He also did a two-year work study program with Schneider Electric in the largest multinational R&D department near Grenoble as Bid Manager and Digital Leader. "I was in charge of supporting countries in which Schneider is located and training teams in new offers in the field of low-voltage intelligent circuit breakers. The following year, I created my short-term position by offering to create several digital applications to facilitate discussions" Lucas explained. 

After obtaining his degree, Lucas even published a book derived from his master's thesis, called "Business Competitiveness and Human Values" (published by "les éditions du net") and created an association called "Project Indigo", the precursor to Sylha. "Today, the association is in stand-by so that I can fully concentrate on Sylha, but it's thanks to Project Indigo that we were able to send a food aid convoy from Narbonne (where I am from) to the "jungle" in Calais. For 6 months, we attended to a group of homeless persons daily. Two of them have since been able to find a job and a place to live" he explained. 

In October 2015, he decided to leave Schneider Electric to fully devote his time to Sylha. 

"With Sylha, you can give meaning to your spending."

"Since 2014, I have been wanting to work toward having a positive impact on society. With Project Indigo, I wanted to offer homeless persons access to contactless payment services. The idea was that individuals could fund an account for a homeless person virtually. Then the beneficiaries could only spend the money in partner companies and they have access to personalised support from organisations working on social reintegration. However, the nonprofit legal framework was too restrictive to enable us to go further and fast enough. Additionally, looking at the world from a macro perspective, I realised that the act of paying maintain a single and unique capitalistic financial loop: money serving money, forgoing human and environmental interests. Creating a payment tool with a company could therefore provide citizens the opportunity to chose to support, partially or not at all, a sustainable financial loop."

To address this issue, Lucas created Sylha, a connected coin embedded in an authentic and customisable bracelet, which is linked to a secured application. 

The system is simple: "With the application, you credit your electronic wallet, you establish the level of use for your personal information, and you select the projects you care about. Everything is transparent, and every time you pay for something you generate points that are redistributed as donations to the selected projects. First off, we are targeting the cultural work with concert venues and small and medium-sized festivals (for purchases made at the bar for example)." 

To raise money, Sylha is counting on selling contactless payment coins, bracelets and commissioned activities. "We want to raise awareness about the Social and Solidarity Economy by giving citizens the power to fuel, little by little, a sustainable loop, which allows all actors of the ecosystem to be winners" Lucas explains. 

And the project is attracting numerous supporters! In April 2016, Sylha integrated incubator "LINKSIUM" with a 114,500€ budget to develop a hybrid contactless payment solution in partnership with the INRIA research laboratory. Recently, three people joined the start-up and the company is currently in the process of signing a partnership agreement with "la Belle électrique" a concert venue, to conduct tests within the establishment. 

Today, Lucas and his colleagues hope to raise 200,000€ from banks and the GAIA network to officially launch Sylha in 2018. 

Do you like Lucas' project? Support him! 

Sylha is participating in a contest organised by la Fabrique Aviva! All you need to do is vote and share his project with your network, so don't hesitate to help him develop his project! 

VOTE FOR SYLHA

For further information:

• https://sylha.io/
• https://www.facebook.com/Sylhacommunity

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